Whereabouts Unknown: 441 Georgia Sex Offenders Go Missing

Child molesters, rapists, and kidnappers are among the 441 registered sex offenders authorities in Georgia are unable to locate. And with parts of Georgia less than 50 miles from Greenville, the peach state’s missing sex offenders could be our problem too.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation maintains the state’s sex offender registry, and is charged with keeping tabs on over 17,000 offenders. Authorities have lost track of almost 250 registered sex offenders just from metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The AJC piece focuses heavily on the plight of much maligned sex offenders who simply want to live in peace. Anyone have a barf bag?

Authorities claim that citizens need not be concerned about the large number of absconders since the majority of victims know their attackers.

“The people on the registry are not the ones to be concerned about,” said John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which maintains the sex offender registry. “It’s the ones who live right up under your nose. Stranger-on-stranger sex crimes do happen. But most cases involve people the victim already knows.”

Studies commissioned by the U.S. Justice Department suggest that children are more likely to be sexually assaulted by family members, baby sitters or authority figures such as teachers or coaches than by strangers. One analysis found that in 60 percent of cases in which boys were the victims and in 80 percent involving girls, the child knew the assailant.

But it’s easier to present statistics neatly wrapped and tied with a bow than it is to explain to distraught parents that a known sexual predator has their missing child. Nearly ten percent of registered sex offenders in the Atlanta area are off the radar of Georgia authorities, and any one of them could be creating new statistics at this very moment. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is publishing pages torn right from the playbook of pedophile rights activists. What’s next? A sympathetic paean to NAMBLA?